The new room :)

Will add more pictures as I make newer additions.. 

Newbies- II

Ok, the first list did not quite work out the way I wanted, blame it on.. oh just forget it. One should always look forward to newer things

So here is part II

Next purchase: Almost French by Sarah Turnbill

New song stuck on my lips: Anyone else but you by Moldy Peaches

New favourite author: Pico Iyer

Next film to watch: This list is quite long actually. Eat, pray, love. The  Social Network. The King's speech. The tourist.

New thing on "to buy when I have a real job list" is a Vacation to Venice

You are what you read

A very funny thing happened today. I and my roommate were having a very casual conversation. She suddenly looks at my stack of books on the rack and says, "The other day X came to our room and couldn't believe you read all that. She didn't know you were smart enough to read James Joyce." I couldn't help but smile. Sometimes it makes me wonder how many people on this planet are judging me right now? I wear pink does that mean I am a bimbette? I love shopping, so that makes me a spoilt brat? I don't scream out of my lungs to  put forward a point in class, so does that make me dumb? I don't publicize myself so does that mean I am not good enough?

It is very surprising how we have categories for people and how we put them in these categories in spite of not knowing them enough. It amazes me how little we think of each other and so much about ourselves. What makes us gloat or be pompous to the extent of making exhibitions of ourselves. Why do we feel the need to prove a point all the time?

Co-incidentally I was having a conversation with another friend who happened to tell me how I don't feel the need to be out there. Well yes she is right.

My virtual Bombay

What do I do to keep in touch with Bombay when I am not in Bombay?

1.       Subscribe to Brown Paper Bag and read it religiously. The two scouters are like my saviors. CNNgo  is pretty cool too.

2.       For all the Bluefrog  gigs that I do not make it to, I have Awdio. It is the coolest thing ever only if you have good internet speed.

3.       Read highlighted lines from the Maximum City by Suketu Mehta and Shantaram

4.       Get updates from fellow Bombaywallahs.

5.       Snap at people who call it Mumbai or Mumbhaaai or Mumbaeee.

6.       Dream of Bombay every night

Its not just a book..

This is one of my most favourite poems.. 

Love for This Book - 
Pablo Neruda
 

In these lonely regions I have been powerful
In the same way as a cheerful tool
Or like untrammeled grass which lets loose its seed
Or like a dog rolling around in the dew.
Matilde, time will pass wearing out and burning
Another skin, other fingernails, other eyes, and then
The algae that lashed our wild rocks,
The waves that unceasingly construct their own whiteness,
All will be firm without us,
All will be ready for the new days,
Which will not know our destiny.
 

What do we leave here but the lost cry
Of the seabird, in the sand of winter, in the gusts of wind
That cut our faces and kept us
erect in the light of purity,
as in the heart of an illustrious star?
What do we leave, living like a nest
of surly birds, alive, among the thickets
or static, perched on the frigid cliffs?
So then, if living was nothing more than anticipating
the earth, this soil and its harshness,
deliver me, my love, from not doing my duty, and help me
return to my place beneath the hungry earth.

We asked the ocean for its rose,
its open star, its bitter contact,
and to the overburdened, to the fellow human being, to the wounded
we gave the freedom gathered in the wind.
It's late now. Perhaps
it was only a long day the color of honey and blue,
perhaps only a night, like the eyelid
of a grave look that encompassed
the measure of the sea that surrounded us,
and in this territory we found only a kiss,
only ungraspable love that will remain h

Books = BFFs? or not BFFs?

Yesterday I was shopping for a few books at Landmark

Observation 1: Pune Landmark is nothing compared to the Bombay one (Infinity mall, Andheri)

Observation 2: Teenagers in Pune are obsessed with Linkin Park, that wasn’t a surprise

Observation 3: Most kids flocked the Xbox and PS3 corner in the bookstore, whereas the classics section, children’s books section were mostly empty or had parents dallying around to find something for their kids who were at the gaming section.

I remember reading Heidi, Bambi or even the Tales of the Huckleberry Finn (that was my favourite as a kid). Like all good girls I read fairytales every night, Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, I dreamt about the seven dwarfs and me playing snow white. I even owned pretty shoes like Cinderella. Then I slowly moved on to Oliver Twist, Sherlock Holmes and then there was a brief period of Mills and Boons owing to my age and hormones. And all this while the classics never died. May it be Jane Austen or Jonathan Swift and even Shakespeare- I had a habit of reading aloud Shakespeare, especially Merchant of Venice. That was me when the only video games we played were the ones that came in a big box, cousins or daddy would lug along from foreign land. Mario and Luigi it was.

Today, most kids own PS3s or PSPs or what not. What are they reading anyways? Ummm nothing really. It is either J.K. Rowling’s world that takes them far away from reality or it is Paulo Coelho, yes kids are reading that too, talk about growing up a bit too fast. May be the next disability would be inability to read. Thus I do not support e-books or even audio books or anything that takes one away from the joys of holding a book and reading it.

I love the way books smell. The old ones have a peculiar musky smell, whereas the new ones to me are like hot muffins-fresh and yum. This is what I thought as I waited for the staff to hunt for the book I wanted.


(P.S :- I bought Peter Ackroyd’s selected essays)


(P.S. 2:- I have become a pro at typing in the dark)